


All Our Pages

by PeachyBee



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, cuties doing cute things, gayyy, jean is a pathetic loser who can't express himself, like really gaaaay, maybe some smutt in there eventually (who knows)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:17:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyBee/pseuds/PeachyBee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean is looking for work in a new city and happens to stumble across a boy who he thought he would never see again. When the two are reunited, they start their adventure right where they left off, however with the introduction of new people in their lives, they have to understand that the childish simplicity they knew before has faded with time, adding to the pages of their ever-growing story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

     “Jean, honey! It’s time to come inside!” A women called from down the street.

A hand gun was pointed, ready to shoot, Jean’s lips pressed together to make the deadly “boom!”

sound. However, a whine past his lips, as well as the intended target’s.

     “Jean, can’t you just play for a little longer?” Jean’s best friend, Marco asked insistently. Jean bit his lip

nervously and craned his neck around and peered down the quickly darkening street.

     “Mo—“

     “Right now!”

Jean’s hand fell to his side and he hung his head in defeat. The two kids started walking back to the

houses as slowly as possible. Dirt kicked up behind them as they drug there feet across the empty lot. A

line of weeds marked the end point of the lot and the beginning of the street.

     “Want to play tomorrow?” Marco asked with a smile that never quite went away.

     “Yea! Sure.” Jean grinned.

Then the two parted ways by sprinting to their houses. Both on opposite sides of the streets. This was

a tradition that they had for years. Every day after school they would play in the dirt lot across their

street. A few other kids were on the street, but they went home early and left Jean and Marco to fend

for themselves in their fight against the enemies (army was the street’s favorite game).

Jean hopped up the few steps that led to his porch and raced through the door slamming the door

behind him. His mom came in from the kitchen while wiping her hands with a dish cloth,

      “Gently next time?” She asked calmly. Jean nodded hurriedly but his mom gently grabbed him by the

shoulder before he could get away. She kneeled down and began wiping his face covered in dirt with

the cloth. Jean groaned and wiggled as his mom cleaned him up. His bottom lip poked out into a pout.

It quickly went away as he saw his mom drape the cloth over her knee and set both of her hands on his

shoulders. He tilted his head slightly as he wondered what was wrong, his mom looked guilty.

     “Jean. Honey, we’re—“ She sighed gently, wondering what the easiest way to break the news to her

son was. She had gone over the scenario so many times and no way sounded best. “We’re moving to

another house.”

     Jean stared blankly at her, “Okay. Is it the closer to Marco’s house?” Jean grinned excitedly.

     “No.” She answered; Jean’s grin fell. “We’ll be moving to Shiganshina district for a little while.”

Jean didn’t respond right away. After a few moments he finally said, “Isn’t it going to be a lot of work to

move everyone’s stuff on this street to a different place?”

     Jean’s mom shifted her weight from one leg to the others and smiled sympathetically, “It’s just going to

be us Jean. No one else is coming with us.”

     His reaction was very slow, but it took that long for the news to sink in. He and his mom were moving

away from his friends. To an entirely new place. Jean’s expression became that of frustration and anger.

His jaw tightened and he stepped way from his mom before he ran up the stairs. He purposefully made

his steps heavy as he stomped up the stairs and slammed the door to his bedroom.

Jean’s mom let out a long exaggerated sigh as she put her face into her hands for a moment. She rubbed

her eyes before grabbing the dish towel and returning to the kitchen to finish dinner.

     In his bedroom, Jean paced before finally plopping on his bed with his arms crossed. This house, this

street has been his home for as long as he could remember. All of his greatest moments, and most

terrible moments had happened on this street. His eyes began to burn as tears started welling up.

He had to leave all of his friends behind, and the thought of leaving Marco behind hurt him the most.

Marco was his greatest soldier, who else was going to save him from the enemies outside of the walls?

There was a small clink outside of his door as well as the sound of something sliding across the floor.

Then footsteps that slowly disappeared from hearing distance. He opened his door quietly, and there

was a tray of his favorite meal. He clenched his teeth, and slammed the door once again. Tears streaked

down his cheeks. He fell asleep that night without a thing to eat.

     The next day, Jean was quiet. Any answer from him to his mom were short and quiet. He sat on the

couch that rested against the window out looking the street. He saw Marco walking down the street

while twirling a ball between his hands. They made brief eye contact before Marco started running. Jean

lifted himself off the couch and ran up the stairs.

     Marco’s knuckles continuously tapped against the door, the taps getting progressively harder, until

someone answered the door, “Jean! Would you like to play!”

     A very unfamiliar even occurred that Marco was not used to, and he somewhat felt uncomfortable that

Jean’s mom answered the door. It was usually Jean who enthusiastically opened the door, and would

scream at his mom asking if he could go out and play. “Good morning, Marco.” She answered the door

with a smile.

     “Good morning, Mrs. Kirschtein. Can Jean come out and play?” Marco asked politely. His nose crinkled

before smiling.

     “Ummm…” She turned from the door and looked up the stairs expecting Jean to be waiting with his

sneakers on. “Jean?” She called. There was no response. “I’m sorry, Marco. I don’t think he wants to

play today.

     “Oh.” Marco replied in disappointment. “Okay bye.”

     Jean’s mother nodded and closed the door gently.

     The next day, Marco burst out from his house and started racing down the sidewalk. He had counted

more than a million times the number of sidewalk tiles there were from his house to Jeans, 43. It felt

like there 10 times that many before he finally arrived to his best friends house. The lights of the house

were off, and he bent over to catch his breath. It didn’t take him too long though because he flew up the

steps to the porch and knocked in panic against the grand door. He kept knocking, and knocking…and

knocking. No one came to answer the door. He took the couple steps to the window, and lifted himself

up to his tiptoes to see if anybody was inside. Not one person, and not one item remained inside of

Jean’s house. No one played army that day.


	2. The Smell of Books and the Colour of Freckles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean begins looking for work in a new city and gets more than he bargained for.

    Jean sat up quickly, escaping a nightmare. He sat silently for a moment before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and sleepily standing up. He had just made it to his feet when he realized that his legs were still entangled in the sheets.

 

After rocking back and forth in an attempt to regain balance, Jean went down like a plank, his face making a crude smacking sound upon hitting the hardwood floor.

 

Jean was not a morning person.

 

He stumbled across the apartment, still entangled in the sheep, hopping his way to a pile of boxes. Rummaging through them, he quickly pulled out an old coffee pot that he had bought at a thrift shop ages ago, and began brewing coffee.

He sat down on the bare floor and let the smell of coffee waft through his new home. He had things to do, he needed a job, a way to get around, and most importantly, some friends.

 

Leaving Trost seemed like a good idea at the time, everyone in the small farm town seemed to know too much about him. However, his whole life was in Trost, he didn’t know a soul in Maria and had no way of supporting himself. He worked all summer at the Trost City Car Clinic to afford this apartment for two months, but after that, he had nothing.

 

After finishing his coffee and managing to find a clean shirt, Jean headed out the door. He was just about to exit the building when he felt someone watching him.

Turning slowly, he noticed a short man wrapped up in a bathrobe holding a cup of coffee and standing in front of the apartment next to his.

 

“Make noise after midnight and I will personally slit your punk-ass throat.” The man coughed.

 

“What a warm welcome, neighbor, but some banana bread or flowers would have been just fine,” Jean retorted.

 

“Watch it kid,” the man spat with a completely unpleasant glare on his pinched face as he retreated back to his lair. Weird.

 

After about two hours of walking the busy streets of Maria, Jean began walking into shops and asking if they were hiring. No one was. A city as busy as Maria had little room for scruffy looking teenagers like Jean, but he needed a job. He was just about to give up his search when he saw a red “HIRING” sign out of the corner of his eye. He whipped around to see that the sign advertised a small bookstore on a quiet street corner. Jean had never been much of a reader, but a job was a job.

 

He pushed the door open which set off a chain reaction of bells along the wall. The store itself was rather quaint. The walls were decorated with the most ridiculous wallpaper and the tiles were a hideous shade of pink. Potted plants were scattered throughout the different shelves and paper cranes hung from the ceiling along with dream catchers and other knick knacks.

And almost as if to complete the picture, a young man sat across from the front desk wearing a sweater vest with, I kid you not, a bunny on it.

 

Jean studied the boy carefully, taking note of every freckle that dotted his charming face. The boy seemed to be preoccupied, whistling as he sorted through papers. He stopped and pulled out a pair of glasses from the pocket of that ridiculous bunny sweater of his and daintily placed them on his nose, wiggling his nose ever-so-slightly as the glasses settled on his face.

 

Was this guy for real?

 

Jean coughed and the freckled boy looked up quickly and the small content smile left his face. It would be a lie to say Jean wasn’t sad to see it go. The boy frantically ripped the glasses off his face and thrusted them back into the pocket of his bunny vest.

There was a moment of silence as the freckled man seemed to forget what he was doing and stare aimlessly at a very confused Jean. He could have stayed like that for hours, admiring the stranger, but as the sweater-vest-wearing individual settled into his gaze, his hand slipped and sent a stack of books tumbling to the ground.

 

Is this guy for real?

 

The boy rushed to re-stack the books with such speed, you would think the floor was lava. Out of sheer pity, Jean bent down and began to help.

 

“Hi, I’m Marco,” he said with a small smile growing on his face.

From this close, Jean could see each freckle on Marco’s face. They seemed to multiply as his smile widened. If not for the bunny vest, chicks would dig this guy, but hey, I’m sure someone out there is into that kind of thing.

 

“I’m here about the um job...” Jean mumbled.

 

“Oh ya oh right that’s perfect, I think you need this,” Marco spoke quickly as he stood up and pulled away from Jean to grab a paper from the desk above them.

“I could really use two extra hands around here, I mean unless you have three or one or something, in that case I need whatever number of hands you have, but I’m assuming you have two.” Marco rambled. He probably would have gone on forever if Jean hadn’t had recognized him forever.

 

Something about the way his eyes shone under the dim lights of the bookstore, or the kind smile that permanently inhabited his face made Jean remember happiness and beautiful simplicity. Jean studies the freckles that dotted his cheeks and carried towards his forehead like constellations. Mentally tracing the freckles on Marco’s face, Jean remembered feeling safe, home.

 

“Marco, Marco Bodt?” Jean whispered.

 

“Ya haha that’s me! And you’re Jean, Jean Kirchstein”

 

We were neighbors as kids right, Sina Street.”

 

“Wow, I can’t believe it’s you, it’s been so long, how’ve you been, how’s your mom? She was always a crazy lady!”

 

“She- She’s um dead actually... but it’s okay, I don’t want you to give me this job out of pity or anything like that.”

 

“Oh I-I- I’m sorry, and you have the job regardless, I need someone to work the night shift with me because college students are in here pretty late and I get sleepy after about eleven so you work from five pm to about three am, is that OK? I mean I’ll be here too, I wouldn’t leave you to handle a bunch of cramming college students all night by yourself. Unless you-”

 

“Sound good, so how did you end up in Maria, it’s a pretty long way from Sina Street,” Jean interrupted.

“I moved here for a relationship, but stayed for the city.” Marco straightened his bunny vest, and the smile on his face slowly shrunk to a timid smirk. Jean didn’t ask about the relationship, something about the way Marco grew quiet as he mentioned it made Jean realize it was still a touchy subject.

 

“Thank you for this job, Marco,” Jean said quietly, in an attempt to recover the smile buried in unhappy memories.

 

The smile peeked out from behind his freckles, appearing as quickly as it had gone away, no sign that he had ever been frowning.

 

“No problem, It’ll be just as fun working together as it was saving the world together!”

Was this guy for real?

 

 

 

 

 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as promised, here is the next chapter! (this one is by me!)   
> I hope you all enjoyed Marco's bunny sweater and Jean trying not to be a dork.  
>  Thanks for reading cutie!

**Author's Note:**

> So, as you can tell, this is just a flashback from when they were kids, the next chapter is coming soon, stay tuned for more! (thanks for reading cutie)  
> I'm really excited to start this fic, I do have a co-author, but he doesn't have an archive account so just know that every other chapter will be his. (this one was his)  
> Until next time,  
> PeachyBee


End file.
